Sunday, April 09, 2006

Dateline London -- Random Travel Musings

More musings from Veep Wambold...

You know you’ve been in London for a while when you’ve conquered the change. I took pride by the end of our week in not making the people in line behind me wait three minutes while I sorted out my 2 pence, 50 pence, 1 pound and 2 pound pieces to pay for a bottled water.

The Tube is impressively intuitive. By the end of the week Chris and I were whipping our Oyster Cards around like Hugh Grant. We got on one wrong train in one week – not bad considering we must have ridden the Tube 20+ times.

Is it just me, or were the pubs in London much less smoky this time around? And is it also me, or does the Guinness on tap somehow taste just that much better in London? Make that a whole lot better.

As a rule, I try to avoid patronizing American stores in other countries, to try to learn a little about their culture. But Starbucks zealot that I am, man was it hard to walk past the Starbucks in London or Paris every day without getting myself a Grande Somalian or Gold Coast!

Thanks to the Parisians I met for not reaffirming the stereotypes of Parisians who detest Americans. Those that I encountered graciously worked with me while I stumbled through my extensive twelve word French vocabulary.